Chapter 82:- Little Precious Memory

The next morning, 

Mr. Taro woke up around 7 in the morning. At that time, his assistants had already woken up and had prepared breakfast for their boss. 

As Mr. Taro came out of his tent, he noticed that their protectors were missing. 

"Where are they?" He asked his assistant Ken. 

Ken merely pointed in the direction of the lake. When he looked in that direction, he showed a surprised reaction. 

Team 7 was training with Kakashi. 

"When did they start to train?" Mr. Taro curiously asked as Aya brought him a bowl full of water to wash his face. 

"We are not sure. When I woke up, they were already training." It was Aya who responded. 

Meanwhile, in the middle of the lake, Kakashi was instructing Sakura on the principles of mastering Water Whip Jutsu.

While Sakura was training with Kakashi, Sarada, and Hanabi were sparring against Naruto.

Both Sarada and Hanabi attacked Naruto together. But unsurprisingly, Naruto kept dodging all of their attacks. While both of them were panting and sweating after hours of trying to fight him, Naruto still hadn't broken a sweat. 

Their sparring started around 2 hours ago. The rule of this spar was simple: Both sides were only allowed to use Taijutsu. They were allowed to use shurikens and Kunai but not explosive tags, as they are dangerous. 

Huff....!! Huff.....!!

"What should we do? Since the beginning, we haven't been able to land an attack on him." Hanabi knew that they would lose. But she didn't want them to lose without even landing a single attack on Naruto. 

At the beginning of the spar, Hanabi and Sarada's coordination was really bad. Naruto fully used this to his advantage and used each other to shield himself from their attacks. 

Both of them were quickly able to adjust and coordinate their attacks, but it still wasn't enough. Although they were coordinating their attacks, their coordination still hadn't reached a point where they could overwhelm Naruto. But this was still a very impressive feat. 

After two hours, Sarada and Hanabi were almost out of stamina. Their speeds had slowed down compared to before. Two continuous hours of spar had taken a toll on their bodies. Especially, Hanabi was doing much worse than Sarada. Sarada had better stamina than Hanabi since she often trained on her stamina. Also, Hanabi's fighting style consumed more energy. 

Sarada wiped the sweat from her forehead while keeping her eyes on Naruto. Due to the rules, she and Hanabi weren't allowed to use their Dōjutsu. If they had used their eye powers for this long, then by now, both of them might have fainted. 

Naruto folded his arms on his chest and looked at them with a smile. "I am disappointed if this is the best you two could do." Of course, Hanabi and Sarada understood that he was just provoking them. He has been doing this since the beginning. In the beginning, this worked as both of them charged at him without any thoughts or any kind of plan in their heads, but now they have gotten used to it. 

"I have a plan....!!" Sarada and Hanabi exchanged a look before Hanabi nodded her head. Sarada was a very reliable partner. Hanabi trusted whatever plan she had. 

"What do you want me to do?" Asked Hanabi. 

"How much Chakra do you have?" Sarada asked back. Her tone was still kind of cold but Hanabi had long gotten used to it. 

"Not much."

"Can you create a clone?" 

"Probably, yes!!"

"Good...!!" 

Both of them created a clone of themselves and sent the clones to attack Naruto. 

"You know, using your clones won't work on me." But in his mind, Naruto wanted to see what kind of plan these two were cooking. 

Dodging the punch of the first clone, Naruto destroyed both clones with a roundhouse kick.

Boom....!

Just as he did that, Hanabi charged at Naruto. Sarada was just behind her. 

Hanabi tried to hit his stomach with her palm attack which Naruto deflected with the wave of his hand. This left Hanabi wide open. Just as Naruto was about to finish the fight, a Kunai with an explosive tag tied to flew past Hanabi's head. 

Seeing this, Naruto widened his eyes. He was momentarily caught off guard. 

Naruto was about to deal with the explosive tag when the tag transformed. It was Sarada. 

Naruto was stunned seeing this, but the next second, he grinned. "That's not enough to stop me."

Naruto punched her stomach. Punching her face would have been much quicker and easier, given the close distance, but he did not want to hurt her face. He did not want to see anything happening to her beautiful cold face, so he went for her stomach while holding back his strength. In his spar, he never used his full strength or speed. 

"Go for it, Hanabi....!!" While Naruto took care of Sarada, Hanabi struck Naruto in the stomach with her palm attack.

Naruto felt the impact and staggered back. He felt pain from this pain, but that quickly disappeared, as he focused his attention on Hanabi, who took a step forward and launched a flurry of rapid palm strikes. 

Hanabi was giving her all in this final attack. She knew this was their only chance to take Naruto down in this spar. Even if this did not work, she and Sarada had run out of stamina and Chakra to continue this spar. 

But this time, Naruto was prepared. Naruto dodged and deflected each one of her attacks. His movements were a blur of speed and precision.

Sarada quickly recovered and rejoined the fight. She moved with a graceful agility with her eyes locked onto Naruto. 

At this point, Kakashi and Sakura had stopped their training. Their attention was on the spar. 

Now, Naruto was being attacked from multiple angles. Naruto gritted his teeth he was kind of struggling to continue with their rapid attacks. Now their coordination had reached another level. He was also starting to enjoy this spar.

Naruto parried a kick from Hanabi, then spun to block a punch from Sarada. 

As the battle continued, Naruto could sense the tide was turning. He could see that Hanabi and Sarada were being pushed to their limits. They were stubbornly over-pushing their limits and boundaries. 

He countered Hanabi's palm strike, which sent her staggering back.

He shifted his focus to Sarada, who had already initiated another attack. Naruto evaded her punch and, in one smooth motion, swept her legs out from under her. She fell to the ground but quickly rolled back to her feet.

Hanabi, undeterred, charged at Naruto once more. He met her with a powerful kick, sending her flying back. She hit the lake water but immediately got back up, but it was clear that this was the end of the battle. 

Naruto grinned at the two. He was impressed by their determination and IRON WILL to push limits to the very end. "You two were incredible,"

Sarada was very exhausted. She could not keep standing anymore. She sat on the lake water. 

Both of their bodies were soaked in sweat and water. 

Hanabi's condition was even worse than Sarada's. Her face was pale. She was panting heavily. In the last part of their spar, Hanabi had pushed all of her boundaries to the maximum. Although they lost, this spar taught her so many valuable things.

Hanabi closed her eyes for a second. She was about to sit down, but suddenly, the chakra under her foot was imbalanced. 

Hanabi was startled. She fell into the lake water. 

Naruto noticed her body was rapidly sinking to the bottom of the lake. 

Given how exhausted she was, Naruto knew that she might not be able to swim back to the top.

Seeing this, Naruto did not hesitate a second and dived into the water. 

Kakashi and Sakura hurried toward Sarada. The three of them waited for Naruto to come to the top with Hanabi. 

Naruto noticed Hanabi sinking to the bottom of the lake. Without hesitation, he dove in after her. Once he reached her, he wrapped his left arm around her chest and started swimming upward with her.

Hanabi also opened her eyes. Even if Naruto hadn't saved her, she would have swam back to the top. 

Once their heads emerged from the water, they both took deep breaths to replenish their oxygen levels.

"Hanabi, are you alright?" Sakura worriedly asked. 

"Yeah, I am fine. Just a little bit tired." Hanabi then noticed where Naruto's arm was holding her. His left arm was pressing on her boobs. 

'This is so embarrassing....!!' Hanabi was relieved that the rest of her body was still underwater which saved her from more shame. 

Sarada helped Hanabi get back to the surface of the lake. 

'Naruto didn't do this purposely or did he?' Hanabi thought to herself. She sneakily glanced at Naruto only to find him taking out two towels from the storage scroll and handing one to Hanabi. 

"Dry yourself." 

After a while, the girls took their time to clean their bodies and change their outfits in the wooden house while Naruto and Kakashi sat in front of the campfire. A few clones of Naruto were preparing fish for everyone. 

The wooden house did not have any showering facility. The girls had to use wooden buckets. They filled the buckets with water and then took the buckets inside to clean their bodies. This was much better than having to bathe out in the wild. 

"Honestly, how can you make such a rookie mistake?" Sakura asked as she helped dry Hanabi's hair. 

"Hehe....!! I was too exhausted, so I lost control over my chakra for a moment." Hanabi replied with a smile. 

Seeing her smile, Sakura became suspicious and asked. "Why do I have the feeling that you did this whole thing on purpose?"

Sarada also glanced at Hanabi for an answer. She also suspected the same. 

"Maybe or may not....!!" Hanabi replied with a wink. This was a small yet very precious memory that she was going to remember for the rest of her life. 

"You.....!!" Sakura suddenly felt that she was falling behind. 

She also realized that Hanabi was a big threat. 'If I want to win, then I will need to work even harder now. I cannot fall behind.'

--------

Once again, thank you for reading this chapter. I really appreciate all the power stones that you all have given to this novel. Your comments and your power stones do make a big difference.

If you want to read 15 advanced chapters or if you want to support me, then you can visit my Patrèon page - patrèon.com/Salted_dragon